| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: surrounding element, and these again, once moved, communicate
motion to others in endless succession." In like manner, "the air
itself is one vast library, on whose pages are forever written
all that man has ever said or even whispered. There in their
mutable but unerring characters, mixed with the earliest as well
as the latest sighs of mortality, stand forever recorded vows
unredeemed, promises unfulfilled, perpetuating in the united
movements of each particle the testimony of man's changeful
will."[6] In some such way as this, records of every movement
that takes place in the world are each moment transmitted, with
the speed of light, through the invisible ocean of ether with
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: of pretty nothings with more acquired cleverness than native wit,
stoops to your ear and adds, with a shrewd glance: "I have never seen
Monsieur Firmiani. His social position is that of looking after
property in Italy. Madame Firmiani is a Frenchwoman, and spends her
money like a Parisian. She has excellent tea. It is one of the few
houses where you can amuse yourself; the refreshments are exquisite.
It is very difficult to get admitted; therefore, of course, one meets
only the best society in her salons." Here the Lounger takes a pinch
of snuff; he inhales it slowly and seems to say: "I go there, but
don't expect me to present YOU."
Evidently the Lounger considers that Madame Firmiani keeps a sort of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: "And what may that be?"
I hesitated a moment. "To make love to the niece."
"Ah," cried Mrs. Prest, "wait till you see her!"
II
"I must work the garden--I must work the garden," I said to myself,
five minutes later, as I waited, upstairs, in the long,
dusky sala, where the bare scagliola floor gleamed vaguely
in a chink of the closed shutters. The place was impressive
but it looked cold and cautious. Mrs. Prest had floated away,
giving me a rendezvous at the end of half an hour by some
neighboring water steps; and I had been let into the house,
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